Pickup assemblies typically use resilient wire tines on a rotating reel to lift windrowed crop materials off the ground and up into baling mechanism or the like as the machine advances across a field. The tines are mounted on support members in the form of bars that extend along the length of the reel in parallel relationship to one another and move in a circular path of travel as the reel rotates. The support bars can oscillate back and forth about their longitudinal axes as the reel rotates, and cam mechanism connected with the support bars controls their oscillation in such a manner that the tines move downwardly through a generally vertical retracting motion at the upper rear extremity of their path of travel to strip out of the flowing crop material and then flip out to a generally radial position along the lower part of the back stretch to prepare for a subsequent forward and upward sweeping motion through ground-lying crop materials.
Typically, such pickup reels utilize four support bars per reel. Although such four-bar reels have the performed adequately for many years, for a number of reasons it would be desirable to have more than four tine bars on the reel. However, increasing the number of bars to five or six bars, for example, may lead to a space problem during the retracting, strip out portion of the tines' path of travel. If the support bars are arranged too close together around the reel in an effort to increase the number of bars and tines, the legs of the tines on one bar may strike the immediately trailing bar during the strip out action. But, reconfiguring each tine so its leg avoids striking the trailing bar may cause other problems.
In this respect, as the tine lifts crop materials off the ground, its leg flexes downwardly to some extent under the load of the crop materials. When such loading is suddenly removed at the top of the reel when the tine releases the crop, the tine leg snaps back forwardly well beyond its original unloaded position. If the tine leg is too close to its own support bar due to reconfiguration of the tine for interference avoidance purposes, the tine leg may strike the top edge of its support bar so sharply that the leg completely breaks off.
The present invention overcomes this problem by providing a special shape to each leg of the tine. Adjacent the inner end of the tine leg where it joins coils at the base of the tine, the tine leg is provided with a relief notch that clears the top edge of its support bar when the tine leg snaps back forwardly during release of the picked up crop materials. Thus, an increased number of tine bars can be provided in the reel, the tines can be reconfigured to avoid interfering with the trailing bar during oscillation, and noise, premature wear and breakage of the tines from striking the edge of their own support bar can be avoided. With the increased number of tine bars and tines, the pickup assembly has a greater number of tines engaging the crop during each revolution of the reel, which significantly increases the quality and thoroughness of pick up, especially in light and short crop conditions. Moreover, it also means that, with more tines for the same amount of crop material, each tine is not worked as hard as in prior designs, thereby prolonging its useful life.